All feature films on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online

Strictly Ballroom 1992

Strictly Ballroom is one of the most popular Australian films ever made. The story may be nothing new but the execution is so colourful and eccentric it hardly matters.

Bad Boy Bubby 1993

Bad Boy Bubby was conceived as an experiment on virtually every level. It had 32 different cinematographers, for example.

BeDevil 1993

Tracey Moffatt, who is best known as an artist, challenged Western storytelling traditions in Bedevil and polarised critics.

No Worries 1993

Drought has a terrible social cost, as the 11-year-old girl who has to move from a sheep station to the city in this film, makes clear.

The Piano 1993

The Piano is a film about an artist and the story of a woman whose passionate nature is akin to a form of madness. Both themes are common to Jane Campion’s work.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 1994

The most unforgettable scenes in Priscilla feature excessive costumes on incongruous characters in vast, humbling spaces.

Everynight… Everynight 1994

A new prisoner refuses to submit to frequent bashings by prison officers in the notorious H Division of Pentridge prison in Melbourne.

Metal Skin 1994

Social misfit Joe is befriended by the cool and confident Dazey. Their shared passion for drag racing leads to conflict and tragedy.

Muriel’s Wedding 1994

Muriel’s Wedding took Australia by storm when it opened in 1994, satirising an Australian family in a way that audiences found extremely moving, as well as hilarious.

The Sum of Us 1994

The Sum of Us presents three generations of characters, all of whom seek the same thing – a meaningful and long-lasting partnership in love.

That Eye, the Sky 1994

Twelve-year-old Morton ‘Ort’ Flack lives in the outback. When Ort’s father is paralysed in an accident, a stranger named Henry arrives, offering to help.

Vacant Possession 1994

Margot Nash’s ambitious feature debut has a strong political basis, but it’s ultimately a very personal story.

Angel Baby 1995

These lovers are mentally ill and, for the sake of their coming baby, go off their medication, adding a touch of heroism to the film.

Babe 1995

A worldwide hit film based on a children’s book about a farm pig who wants to be a sheepdog.

Epsilon 1995

Rolf de Heer combines extraordinary time lapse photography with a drama that argues that the human race is killing the planet.

What I Have Written 1995

A layered mystery that revolves in part around the classic question of the unreliable – or perhaps reliable? – narrator.

Blackrock 1996

Blackrock’s depiction of teenagers letting off steam with sex and drink and rock 'n’ roll is very dynamic because of the fluid camerawork, lively soundtrack and energetic choreography.

Cosi 1996

Does it matter that Cosi, about psychiatric patients staging the opera Così Fan Tutte, never quite loses its theatrical origins?

Dead Heart 1996

Bryan Brown plays a second generation Northern Territory cop caught up in a power struggle over whether black or white law is supreme.

Floating Life 1996

Being a new migrant is portrayed with amazing freshness, perhaps because the film’s key creators had not been in Australia for long.

Idiot Box 1996

Idiot Box argues that bored men who spend years watching television, desire catharsis on a theatrical scale.

Love and Other Catastrophes 1996

A light-hearted comedy that follows five Melbourne university students encountering love, study and house-share problems in the mid-‘90s.

Love Serenade 1996

The director’s light touch and the performances allows Love Serenade to get away with an outrageous joke involving a big fish.

The Quiet Room 1996

Why does a seven-year-old girl refuse to speak? Increasingly vicious arguments between the parents are not the whole story.

Romeo + Juliet 1996

Baz Luhrmann’s radical update of Romeo + Juliet boldly shattered conventional wisdom that said Shakespeare as he wrote it would never appeal to a mass audience.

Shine 1996

This film catapulted both director Scott Hicks and actor Geoffrey Rush onto the international stage.

Dogwatch 1997

This film could almost pass as a 1940s Hollywood studio thriller starring Humphrey Bogart.

Doing Time for Patsy Cline 1997

In Doing Time for Patsy Cline, Ralph (Matt Day) believes at the start that he wants to be a country singer, but he’s not so sure by the end.

Kiss or Kill 1997

This Australian film stood out from others of the time because of its fresh mixture of genre thrills, narrative intrigue and black humour.

Oscar and Lucinda 1997

Drawn together by a passion for gambling, Anglican priest Oscar Hopkins and Australian heiress Lucinda Leplastrier agree on a wager with life-changing consequences.

Road to Nhill 1997

Four lady bowlers roll their car outside a country town. Amid chaos and panicking menfolk, they save themselves.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping 1997

Sonja Buloh returns to Hobart 20 years after leaving her violent father, Bojan. Their reunion ignites painful memories of shattered family life.

Thank God He Met Lizzie 1997

This romantic comedy helped launch Cate Blanchett’s cinema career. It intercuts two stories to create a very satisfying contemplation on romantic love and commitment.

Amy 1998

Amy has an amazing voice, once she discovers it, making this an unusual combination of sentiment, social commentary and singing.

The Boys 1998

David Wenham’s performance as the absolutely terrifying Brett Sprague, launched his career as an actor of serious power and presence.

Dance Me to My Song 1998

A woman with severe cerebral palsy battles to maintain her dignity and independence in the face of a selfish and negligent carer.

In terms of iconoclastic daring, Head On has no equal in Australian cinema. It broke so many rules, offended so many polite conventions, attacked so many silences, that it left audiences stunned and gulping for air.

In the Winter Dark 1998

There have been genre films that explored this kind of rural paranoia, but not so many that take the loneliness of the bush seriously as a cause of real mental trauma.

Praise 1998

Praise has alcohol and tobacco, acid and heroin, sex and oblivion and is like a grungy version of Last Tango in Paris.

Radiance 1998

This is a rare exploration of the emotional interior lives of Indigenous women, in this case, three sisters.

Erskineville Kings 1999

This was Hugh Jackman’s first film role, before he had established himself as a star of musical theatre, and he gives a fine performance in a difficult role.

Holy Smoke 1999

Ruth Barron falls under the spell of a guru while visiting India. Her desperate family hires cult deprogrammer PJ Waters to confront Ruth.

In a Savage Land 1999

Evelyn’s misadventures in the Trobriand Islands are in the foreground of this exploration of racism, colonialism and voyeurism set during the Second World War.